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Russell Howard
Bristol, England |Row 3 title = Medium |Row 3 info = Stand-up, television, radio |Row 4 title = Nationality |Row 4 info = English |Row 5 title = Years active |Row 5 info = 1999–present |Row 6 title = Genres |Row 6 info = Satire/Political satire, Observational comedy |Row 7 title = Subject(s) |Row 7 info = Everyday life, the news |Row 8 title = Influences |Row 8 info = Billy Connolly, Daniel Kitson, Phil Kay, Tommy Tiernan, Lee Evans |Row 9 title = Notable works and roles |Row 9 info = The Milk Run, Mock the Week, Russell Howard's Good News |Row 10 title = Website |Row 10 info = http://www.russell-howard.co.uk/}}Russell Joseph Howard (born 23 March 1980 in Bristol) is an English comedian, who has won several awards for his comedic talents, notably making Zoo magazine's top 10 list of "Britain's Funniest Comics 2005" at number 2 and winning "Best Compère" at the 2006 Chortle Awards. He was also nominated for an if.comedy award for his 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe show, Wandering. Personal life Russell Joseph Howard was born on 23 March 1980 in Bristol, to David Howard and Ninette Howard (nee.Veale.) Howard has two younger siblings twins, Daniel -a systems analyst- and Kerry -an actress- , the former of whom suffers from epilepsy, a fact which Howard often references during his act. In April 2014, Howard became an uncle when Kerry gave birth to a son named Wesley. He currently lives in Camden, London with his fiancee Cerys. Career TV and radio work In 2004 he was commissioned by BBC Radio 1 to write and perform on the comedy series, The Milk Run and he has also appeared on the shows Banter, hosted by Andrew Collins, and Political Animal for BBC Radio 4. He is a regular on British topical panel show Mock the Week. He has also made appearances on 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Would I Lie To You?, Live At The Apollo, The Secret Policeman's Ball 2008, Law of the Playground and Never Mind the Buzzcocks (Series 18, Episode 2 and Series 20, Episode 4). He was one of several comedians picked as the best comedy talent from the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe that recorded 10–15-minute spots for the 'Edinburgh and Beyond show' which was aired on Paramount Comedy 1 in the autumn of 2006. The show was filmed at The Bloomsbury Theatre. From 2009 he took over as compère of this show from Al Murray. From November 2006 to July 2008, Russell co-hosted The Russell Howard Show on BBC 6 Music with fellow comedian Jon Richardson in a Sunday morning slot previously hosted by Russell Brand. The show continued to air, without Howard, until March 2010. He has since explained that his main reason for leaving the show was that he finds radio "really restrictive" and "I feed off the audience as a performer, but you can't gauge a reaction on the radio." Russell was commissioned to make a comedy show called Russell Howard's Good News, aimed at under-25s, for BBC Three, the first episode aired on 22 October 2009 and ran for seven episodes as well as a "Best Of" show and a Christmas Special. It went on to become BBC Three’s highest ever rating entertainment series. In the show, he gave his take on the week's major news stories, also giving some attention to some of the more light-hearted stories of the week. It has been confirmed that two more series of the show have been commissioned, with the second series starting on March 25th 2010. In October 2014, the show moved to BBC Two. In December 2015, Howard made his acting debut in BBC Two's one-off comedy-drama A Gert Lush Christmas, which he also co-wrote. In the special, Howard played Dan Colman, who takes his girlfriend to meet his family in Bristol for Christmas. Charity Work He appeared at Friends of the Earth's LIVEstock 2009 comedy and music event at the Hammersmith Apollo in support of the green campaign group's Food Chain Campaign for planet-friendly farming, in 12 November 2009. For Sport Relief 2010 he took part in the BT Sport Relief Million Pound Bike Ride, with David Walliams, Jimmy Carr, Fearne Cotton, Miranda Hart, Patrick Kielty, and Davina McCall. They cycled from John O'Groats in Scotland to Land's End in 4 days and trying to raise 1 million pounds. Live comedy A show from his 2007 Adventures tour was released on DVD on 17 November 2008, under the title "Russell Howard Live". The show on the DVD was recorded at The Bloomsbury Theatre. Howard started touring his show 'Dingledodies' in September 2008 and played various dates through to December. Due to overwhelming demand he further extended the tour twice into 2009. It sold in excess of 125,000 tickets, including three sell out shows at the Hammersmith Apollo as well as several large arenas such as Wembley Arena and Manchester's MEN Arena. The DVD of this tour was released on 9 November 2009 and features a recording of the show from the Brighton Dome. He was named "Best Theatre Show" at the 2009 Chortle Comedy Awards. Howard performed 10 UK dates between December 11 and 20 2009 for his "Big Rooms and Belly Laughs" tour. He later announced another arena tour for 2011, titled Right Here Right Now In 2014, Howard did his recent tour Wonderbox in which he had dates in Britain, Ireland, America, Australia and New Zealand. DVDs *''Mock the Week: Too Hot For TV'' (2007) *''Russell Howard Live'' (2008) *''Russell Howard Live 2 - Dingledodies'' (2009) *''Mock the Week: Too Hot For TV 2'' (2009) *''Mock the Week: Too Hot For TV 3'' (2010) *''Right Here, Right Now'' (2011) *''Wonderbox'' (2014) External links * Category:Panel